


Benefactor

by drosophilase



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Civic Volunteerism, Has-Beens, M/M, Rivalry, so many animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2760980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drosophilase/pseuds/drosophilase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris and Darren are retired celebrities that seldom coexist peacefully in their small artsy town.  When one of the cornerstone Bridgeview citizens has to abandon her no-kill animal shelter, Chris steps up to help out.  And so does Darren.  Next thing he knows, Chris is volunteering to live at the animal shelter in the interim. ....So does Darren.</p><p>Merry Christmas Michelle!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Benefactor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [missmichellebelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/gifts).



Chris settles into his seat in the second row, primly crossing his legs as he settles his tablet in his lap.  It’s the last town hall meeting of the year, just two weeks before Christmas and he wouldn’t be here if they weren’t finally opening up the discussion for the promised residential and commercial zoning redo in the new year.  He refreshes the shipping progress page compulsively, hoping in vain that Hannah’s present will somehow get delivered today.  It’s still sitting “in transit” and repeated phone calls to eBay’s customer service line still haven’t told him when the 1995 tour shirt he managed to snag (aka, “pay too much for”) will arrive.

The meeting is called to order with two sharp gavel raps and Chris switches over to his note-taking app, pulling out his stylus.  He glances around casually, mindful of Ashley’s watchful eye up from the council seats, but there’s no sign of Criss.  He ducks his head, smiling ruefully to himself as he writes the date.

However, his wry superiority only lasts through a stoplight proposal and a continuation of debates for the elementary school’s five-year plan.  Darren sails through the room in the lull between presentations, dropping himself effortlessly in the chair two down from Chris.

“Dramatic entrance, how quaint,” Chris says none too quietly across the empty chairs between them.

“You’re only upset that you weren’t the one to think of it,” Darren shoots back calmy, crossing his right leg so that he’s angled towards Chris.  He pulls out his moleskin notebook and a pen.

Chris rolls his eyes, ostentatious enough that Darren huffs a laugh.  He pointedly ignores Ashley’s eyebrow raise.

“Next we have Lea Sarfati here to talk about the closure of her animal shelter, Any Old Port.”

Chris sits up straight.  He’s known of Lea for years, met her in passing at the Christmas tree lighting and the mayor’s New Years’ Eve party and the Summer Block Party.  She’s a fixture in Bridgeview, and Chris hadn’t heard she was leaving.

A tearful young woman stands at the front of the room, hands clasped together solemly.  “Thank you, Councilwoman Lee.  I’m utterly heartbroken that I have to leave Any Old Port behind, but after the death of my partner, best friend, and husband, I just can’t stay in Bridgeview.  I might come back someday, but for now… .”  She dabs at the corner of her eye with a tissue, takes a deep breath.  “Bridgeview has been so good to me, and truly I hate to leave it worse than the way I found it, but I don’t see any other solution.  I’ve come to inform the council, and ask for help in rehoming the animals at the shelter.”

Chris’s hand shoots up before his thought is fully formed.

“Mr. Colfer,” Councilwoman Delaney calls on him.

Chris puts his hand down.  “Lea, I’m so sorry for your loss.  But is there no one who can run the shelter in your absence?”

Lea smiles sadly.  “I’ve tried to get someone to take on the running of the shelter, but I just don’t have the money to pay anyone.  Anyone who can afford to work for free is too old or too busy to stay at the shelter.”

Darren’s hand is up, Chris can see out of the corner of his eye.  “What about volunteers?” he asks, not waiting to be called upon.

Lea sighs.  “The shelter is a repurposed historical home.  My husband and I lived there full-time to alleviate the need for overnight staff.  There’s plenty of high schoolers who come on the weekends to bathe and feed and walk dogs, but this is a 24/7 kind of job.  There’s no one who will do it.”

Chris nearly chews on the end of his stylus, but stops himself.  He raises his hand, waits to be called upon.

“I’m willing to donate the wages for a full-time worker for at least a month, until the city can find someone to run the shelter,” he says, confidently.

The media persons that sit in the back row of the small room stand up, cameras flashing.  The room is full of mutters.  Chris nods at Lea’s watery smile.

“I’m willing to match Mr. Colfer’s donation,” Darren says loudly, and the muttering turns to outright chatter.  Chris cuts his eyes at him, furious that Darren’s trying to one-up him on _this_ of all things.

Chris sticks the end of his stylus in his mouth but refuses to bite down, instead chewing over the thoughts tumbling through his head.  He puts up his hand again, pulse thumping in his ears.  He’s not going to let Darren get the best of him, he’s _not_.

“I’ll live at Any Old Port until there’s a new coordinator appointed.”

The room is completely silent for just a second, but long enough for Darren to get in another jab.

“I’ll do the same.”

*

“Okay, you wanna tell me again how this happened?  The _real_ story this time?”

Chris puts his head in his hand, massaging at his temples in a way that’s definitely not fighting off the impending headache.

“I don’t _know_ Amber.  One second I was just trying to help out a local Bridgeview citizen in need, and the next I’m living in an animal shelter for the next foreseeable future.  It all happened so fast.”

“Hm,” she huffs sharply, crossing her arms.  Chris can tell she doesn’t believe him at all.  “Sounds like to me you’re so deep in denial that you’d rather sentence yourself to living in Noah’s Ark with Mr. Criss than just admit you like him.”

“I _hate_ him,” Chris says emphatically, jabbing a finger at the stupid grinning face on the newspaper in front of him.  “He’s infuriating, he’s always trying to outdo me and make me look bad.”

“Mmhmm,” Amber says, picking up her coffee cup and taking a sip to hide her suspicious look.  “I notice you’re smiling with your teeth in that photo op.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Chris hisses, folding the newspaper and tossing it aside.  The Bridgeview Brigade had been all too eager to get a picture and quotes from Chris and Darren after the town meeting, and Darren just _had_ to put his arm around Chris, pulling him flush to his side and making him entirely uncomfortable.

His headache throbs again.  Okay, not _entirely_ uncomfortable.  Darren did smell really nice. And even though he’s shorter, his shoulder just fit perfectly in the curve under Chris’s shoulder.  And he could just feel the tickle of Darren’s unruly hair on his jaw.  And--

“Fuck,” Chris says, banging his forehead on the table.

Amber moves her hand over his striking surface without even breaking her sip.  “ _Language.”_

*

Chris tucks his sunglasses into his shirt pocket, checking his hair one last time in his car’s side mirror.  There’s already a camera crew from Channel 11 on the front porch of Any Old Port, the perky news anchor clutching a microphone.

Grabbing his suitcase, Chris exits the car smoothly, noting with satisfaction that he’s beat Darren again.

“Hi, Mollie,” he greets the newscaster, kissing her on the cheek.  She’s practically got stars in her eyes.

“Mr. Colfer, you are just so giving to our little community,” she gushes, microphone at the ready.  “What made you so selflessly decide to take over the ownership of our only local no-kill animal shelter?”

“Well, this is what Bridgeview is all about,” Chris says, angling for the camera.  “Caring,  community service.  It was only natural that I volunteer my time between writing the next novel in the Seven Stones Series, hitting shelves November of next year by the way, to the continuation of this important community staple.”

“What Chris is trying to say--”  Chris tries so hard to keep his face neutral, but his insides are already burning at that _stupid voice--_ “is that how could we not? When Bridgeview is in need, we answer.”

Of course Darren was already in the house.  How did Chris miss his stupid car?  Hidden behind the news truck, he sees now, shiny black and low-emission and ungodly expensive.

Chris smiles stiffly, trying to seem uninterested and blandly indifferent as Darren slips his stupid arm around him again.

“Bridgeview is so important, and it takes all of us to keep our community strong,” Chris says decisively, grinning at Darren’s miffed grunt.  Darren should know by now he always gets the last word.

*

Mollie follows them around as they explore the shelter for the first time, the cameras close as they walk through the transformed house.  There’s two rooms lined with cages of nothing but cats, and Chris stop to wiggle his fingers through the bars.  Darren stands as far away the cages as he can, arms crossed tight.

“Feeling itchy?” Chris quips, laughing at Darren flinching away from his hands.

There’s another room overrun with puppies and smaller dogs, running from side to side like tiny packs of fuzzy herd animals.  Darren hops over the low barrier and immediately launches himself into the pile, arms full of puppies.  Chris looks down at the yipping right under his nose, bending down to scratch at the puppy pawing insistently at the barrier.  The little pup snuffles and licks and nips at Chris’s hand until Chris finally huffs and steps over the barrier, taking the puppy in his arms.

“This is fucking awesome,” Darren says, half-buried in fluff.  He’s never going to wash all the dog hair out of his clothes.

“Yeah,” Chris says, smiling at the curious puppies even as he’s internally _cringing_ at all the barking.  Small dogs are so obnoxious.

They go out to the larger outdoor cages that hold the bigger dogs, and some things that are definitely not dogs at all.

“A pig,” Chris says incredulously, trying to seem more enthused less _con_ fused, like he definitely is.

“A pot-bellied pig!” Darren corrects, grinning and raising his eyebrows at Chris like he’s being helpful or something.

“And two goats,” Chris adds.  “Just so I’ve got the barnyard tally down.”

The goats regard him balefully, blinking and chewing.  One bleats loudly.

Chris obediently pets and plays and grins and talks to all the dogs that Mollie instructs him towards, even begrudgingly getting in the shots with Darren so that they look like the team that Mollie keeps gushing about.

“Thank you both so much,” Mollie says as they walk back through the house.  She shakes both their hands so enthusiastically that Chris has to subtly shake out his shoulder.  “The story’s gonna be great, and you’re both really admirable for stepping up for this.  Oh, and Darren, I just wanted to say how much I _loved_ Green Match Starting.  You were just amazing in it, I can’t believe you were robbed for the Academy nomination.  And Chris--”

“Yes?” Chris says, already patting his pockets for a Sharpie.

“--There’s a green parrot right behind you.”

Chris turns stiffly, and sure enough, there it is.  The bird’s perched on top of the outdated refrigerator regarding Chris with its beady eyes.

“Well then,” Chris says dumbly, not sure what to do.  The bird squawks and flutters its wings.

“We’ll be going now!” Mollie says brightly, shaking their hands again before gathering up her crew.

Chris resolutely ignores Darren’s sly smile and shoulders shaking with barely contained laughter until the front door slams shut.  And then it’s just the chorus of puppies barking left.  And the bigger dogs joining in as the camera crew loads up to leave.  And the cats hissing at the puppies they can see looking over the barrier.  And the damn parrot joining in the chorus.

“Well, shit,” Chris says.

“Guess it’s our shit now,” Darren says, sounding a little dazed.

“Lea said…” Chris says, pulling open drawers in the kitchen, “there is a timetable notebook she kept with feeding and walking and cleaning schedules.”  He finds the two-inch bright pink binder and opens it warily, flipping through the neatly filled-in pages.  It’s almost cryptic, lots of numbers and letters instead of actual sense.

Darren whistles low.  “Definitely our shit now.”

*

Somehow every animal gets fed.  Chris takes the cats with enthusiasm, dragging their giant food bag from the pantry.  He carefully shuts the doors before filling the bowls, opening all the cage doors until there’s thirty cats with tails straight up in the air and heads in a bowl.  Chris grins, crouching down to scratch backs and stroke tails.  It’s not until they start prowling the room, going for the litter boxes along the side, that Chris realizes he has no idea what cages they go _back_ into.  Some of them seem to get the idea when he starts grabbing and coaxing, but for the rest of them he just sticks them into cages and hopes they get over it.

He moves to the second cat room, catching a glimpse of Darren outside through the wide windows.  The bag of dog food is practically as big as he is, so Darren is carrying three cups full of food back and forth instead.  The dogs are really excited, jumping and barking.  Mostly friendly, it looks, but Darren’s got that pinched look of caution, like he’s preparing himself for the worst.

Chris keeps watching for some reason, Darren juggling the food while trying to open the second section and also keep the dogs from running out into the yard.  The dogs in the first section have their heads down eating eagerly, so Darren must have managed this _somehow_.

On Darren’s third try to keep the dogs back with one foot while nudging the door open with his hip Chris drops the cat food.  He doesn’t even think about it really, just goes through the back door and right up to Darren, squeezing past him into the chain-link fenced pen.

“Come here doggies,” Chris says, trying to sound enticing to the four large dogs in the pen.  He’s almost sure one is a German Shepard and another is some kind of Lab mix and the other two could really be anything, but he’s totally not thinking of how many pounds of muscle they must have. Nope, not at all.

One of the mutts nearly takes the bait, looking back at Chris long enough that the other dogs look too and Darren manages to slip in and close the cage door.  Chris watches as Darren dumps the food quickly, darting out of the way as they descend on their bowls.

“Thanks,” Darren says, rubbing the back of his hand over his forehead.  His designer jeans are dirty and his cashmere sweater is stretched badly and picked in several places and his curly hair looks twice as voluminous as usual but he’s smiling in a way Chris has never seen.  “I don’t know how in the hell Lea could have handled this. Ever.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s a Disney princess and the animals just do all her bidding,” Chris says wryly.  And Darren actually _laughs_.  Not at something Chris did, but at his _joke_.  Chris shifts on his feet, smiling a little despite himself but not sure how to act.

“On to the next one?” Chris says, pointing at the three sections left.

“Are the cats all taken care of already?” Darren asks distractedly, watching the happy, eating dogs warily as they make their exit.

“They’ll keep,” Chris says dismissively, closing the pen securely behind them.

*

Somehow every animal in the shelter gets fed, the litter boxes get cleaned (Darren totally paid back the favor, sneezing the whole time, and Chris managed to sneak a picture of it), and Chris manages to decipher Lea’s code enough to mark the times that every animal was fed and the rough amounts given.  The parrot apparently takes his food on the shelf next to the kitchen cabinets, and Chris looks all over the house but can’t find a single bird cage.

“You can’t change a free bird,” Darren says solemnly, laughing and dodging out of Chris’s slapping range.

Everything seems to be going smoothly until they’re faced with one shower and more importantly, one bed.

“I’ll take the couch,” Chris says immediately, making to walk right back out of the bedroom with his suitcase.

“Chris, dude, there isn’t a couch,” Darren says dismissively, “and you’re not sleeping out there with the puppies, no matter how awesome it would be to sleep in a cuddle pile.  You’re staying here, I promise I won’t steal all the covers.”

Chris eyes him cautiously.  “Can I take the first shower?”

“Yes,” Darren says with exasperation, leaving his duffle bag half-strewn out on the floor.  “I’ll go check on the dogs again, make sure they’re settling down for the night.”

Chris stands still until he’s gone, cautiously digging through his suitcase and grabbing a towel from the linen closet (the nice ones for humans are stacked right next to the ratty donated ones for animals).

The bathroom doorknob comes off in his hand, and Chris freezes for a second before laying it gently on the edge of the sink.  The shower stall is newer than he expected, at least, and Chris turns the water all the way hot as he steps in.  He rests his head against the wall, just resisting banging it a few more times, and breathes out slowly.

This is insanity.  All of it.  He can’t believe he let himself get talked into this.  If only Darren wasn’t so _infuriating_ , so stubborn and fucking charming and stupidly handsome.  Chris bangs his forehead, just once, squeezing his eyes shut.

He steps back and turns the water to lukewarm, reaches for the shampoo bottle.  Things haven’t gone completely to shit yet, at least.

Chris steps out into the freezing bathroom and towels off quickly, shivering.

“Um, Chris?” comes Darren’s voice, muffled through the door.

“Yeah?” Chris replies, digging through his toiletries case for his after-shower lotion while he dabs at his soaking wet hair with his microfiber towel.

“We have a little bit of a, um, situation,” Darren says cryptically.  “Just whenever you get time.”

Chris rolls his eyes.  “Okay,” he yells back, then freezes with his hand massaging his cheek.  “Darren?”

“Yeah?”

Chris sighs.  “I can’t get out of the bathroom.”

“What?”  He’s only half-laughing, there might be a bit of legitimate concern in there.  Chris is probably just hearing things.

“The doorknob broke.  You know what, just open the door please.  Whenever you get time.  Preferably now.”

The door swings open and narrow avoids smacking Chris in the hip.  He grabs at the towel and turns, watches Darren’s mocking smile fall right off his face.

“Uh, so um,” Darren says, and swallows heavily.

Chris raises an eyebrow, arches his back a little bit more.  _This_ is interesting.  He wonders if flexing would be too much.  “The big problem, Darren?”

Darren literally shakes his head like his brain is an Etch-a-sketch.  Chris cannot deal with him.  “Oh yeah.  In the cat room.  Just meet me there.  With a shirt on.  Unless you don’t wanna.  But then… yeah. Okay.”

And he freaking _darts_ out of the bathroom.  Chris zips up his toiletry bag, hissing at the cold hardwood floors on his bare feet.  When the fuck did the temperature drop this much?

He makes sure Darren sees him before he finally puts his sweater over his head, because he’s an asshole and he knows it.  And the look on Darren’s face is entirely too gratifying.

Darren clears his throat pointedly.  “So, the heat is broken.  If you couldn’t tell.  I’ve called all the people I know, and they’re completely backed up tonight.  Bill claims we’ve got great insulation here though, so we should just buckle down and pull out the space heaters.  I hung up on him.”

Chris laughs.  Fuck, his toes are _numb._   “This fucking sucks.”

Darren smiles.  “It gets better.  This cat is pregnant.”

Chris gasps.  “No.  I just fed all the cats!”

Sighing, Darren waves him closer.  “She’s down here on the first floor of cages, I bet you didn’t even notice how slow she’s walking with all the other cats in here.  I’m not a vet, but she’s huge in the belly area and she’s like _nesting_.”

“Nesting,” Chris repeats incredulously, squatting down to peer into the cage.  Fuck, Darren’s probably right.  The cat is gorgeous, all splotches of overlapping black and white, and she’s laid out on her side in the middle of what looks like a carefully-arranged blanket.  There’s no way she’s not pregnant.

“How long will it take until we have kittens?” Chris asks, like Darren would know the answer.  He just shrugs.  Chris points to the phone in Darren’s hand.  “You start googling how to birth kittens.  I’m going to call the people _I_ know about this heating nightmare.”

*

Twenty minutes later, Chris throws his phone across the room.  “Fuck!”

“Yeah no kidding,” Darren says sardonically.  He’s leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed hilariously over the layers he’s wearing.  They’ve both got on most of the clothes they brought with them, as it’s clear the heat is not going to get fixed anytime soon.

“Okay, forget it,” Chris says dismissively.  “We have kittens to worry about.  What do we need for the birth?  Hot towels, a bowl of water?”

“What?” Darren barks out, doubling over in laughter.  “Hot towels, seriously?”

“That’s what they always call for in movies!” Chris defends himself, cheeks turning pink, dammit.  Darren’s laughter-- the kind where something’s actually _funny_ , and not just preposterous or sarcastically amusing-- is so nice, though.  His cheeks get pinker.

“I scoured the internet and I called the local vet’s office emergency number,” Darren says.  “She said to keep watching Kahlo for any signs of birth complications, and to call her if we need her.  But basically, nature takes its course.  With any luck, we’ll have kittens in a couple hours.”

“Kahlo?” Chris asks, intends to be cutting but really just sounds curious.  He clears his throat a little.  “I like it.”

“You can name the kittens if you like,” Darren says, walking back into the cat room.  Chris is surprised to see he’s set up a little nest for them both with blankets and pillows and Chris’s laptop and a fucking guitar.

“I hope you like being serenaded, Kahlo,” Chris says wryly as he settles down, stroking a hand gingerly over the cat’s rounded belly.  She mews pathetically in response.

He settles his glasses on his nose and picks up his laptop while Darren starts strumming notes.  It should drive him crazy really, but it’s kind of nice.  His toes are still kind of cold even in three pairs of socks, his gloves fingers make typing clumsy, and Darren’s humming and singing and switching songs with no abandon, but he’s so relaxed.  Darren doesn’t bother him at all like he thought he would, doesn’t ask for Chris’s opinions or try to get him to sing along.  He’s in his own world, playing music, so it’s easy for Chris to slip into his own fantasy world and crank out another chapter.

*

“Oops!  Oh my god!”

Darren practically _tosses_ his guitar aside, and Chris looks up frantically.  Something’s definitely going on with Kahlo, but Darren’s blocking the cage.  Sighing, Chris puts away his laptop and crawls over, knocking Darren out of the way.

“What _is_ it?” he asks, peering closer for a better look and immediately jerking away.  “Oh.”

“The miracle of life,” Darren says solemnly.  “Or, some really fucking disgusting cat parts I probably never needed to see.  Oh fuck, here comes another one.”

Kahlo immediately starts licking the first slimy kitten, who immediately starts to meow sharply.  Chris winces and fights the urge to cover his ears.

“Should we like… towel it off, or..?”

“Nah, I think Kahlo’s gonna take care of little McGonagall really well.”

“Hey, you said I could name the kittens!” Chris accuses, though the little kitten really does kind of have the look now that he’s said it.

“Next one then,” Darren amends.  “And oh look here he is, right on cue.”

“Ugh!”

*

Chris drapes the last blanket over the cages of the sleeping cats, peeking in on Kahlo (and McGonagall, Merry, Pippin, and Korra) as he goes.  The births went off without a hitch, but by the time all four little kittens were lined up getting their first crack at mother’s milk, Chris was so exhausted he’d felt like he was the one who had given birth.  He and Darren had sat back and stared at each other, surrounded by dirty towels and strewn blankets and a bowl of water that Darren had panicked and gotten around kitten number three, and Darren was so wide-eyed he looked easily twenty years younger, and Chris had just cracked.  He went from bone-deep exhaustion to laughing from deep in his belly and wiping tears from his eyes, not sure which emotion came first.

“Fuck,” Darren manages to choke out between laughter.

“Fuck,” Chris agrees.  “Fuck I’m _cold._ ”

“Let’s go the fuck to sleep.”

Chris leaves the mess in the cat room except the dirty towels, chucking those into the laundry room on the way. 

Darren is almost invisible in the bed piled with blankets, just a mess of curls on the pillow.  Chris laughs, takes off most of the clothes he layered on and slides in quickly to escape the chill.  It’s cozy and the soft mattress has his eyes drooping immediately, even though the sheets are foreign and the mattress is a pillowtop and not memory foam.

He tries to get comfortable but he’s still shivering no matter what, trying in vain to create a warm spot between the sheets.

“C’mere,” Darren says, reaching over Chris with no explanation to grab his left hand.  Chris resists, but Darren is fucking determined as always.  He drapes Chris’s arm over his side and scoots back until they’re fucking _spooning_.

Chris opens his mouth complain but shuts it just as quickly, as he slips into Darren’s warmth and already his shivers are gone.

“Thanks,” he says quietly.

Darren’s breaths are slow and even.  “No, thank you.”

*

In the morning Chris is sweating, overheated under all the blankets.  He shoves them all off him and stretches, sighing at the ache deep in his lower back that never seems to go away.

The bed is empty.  Chris gets up and methodically folds blankets, smoothing the bedding down.  He can hear Darren in the kitchen, moving around and whistling, and if he stays in here he can just pretend that Darren is someone who might be around every morning.  It’s staggering, how _much_ Chris wants that.

He washes his face, brushes his teeth, and puts on a new pair of socks.  And then he’s out of excuses.

The kitchen is bright, flooded with light from the curtains opened around the big bay window.  The dogs outside are already running around, playing and barking.

“You fed all the dogs by yourself?”

Darren turns mid-whistle, holding a spatula in one hand.  “Good morning to you too.  And yes, sort of.  I had Mike help me a little bit.”

“Mike?” Chris asks, sitting down at the table.

“The guy fixing our heat.”  Darren gestures outside, and if Chris leans back and cranes his neck he can just see him.

“Thank God,” Chris says.  Darren starts whistling again and Chris watches him, how he’s moving confidently, flipping something with one hand and leaning down to check something in the oven with the other hand.  Smells like bacon.

Chris stands up abruptly, not even sure himself what he’s doing.  “What are you making?”

Darren turns.  “Pancakes and bacon.  The pancakes are from mix, sorry, but stuff out of the box is about the only thing I know how to make.  Crispy bacon okay?”

“Yeah,” Chris says, leaning a hip on the kitchen counter.  He’s close enough to feel the heat from the stove.  Darren is mesmerizing, flipping pancakes, stacking them neatly on two plates, nudging the bacon in the oven around with tongs.  Chris feels settled in a way he hasn’t since he first came to Bridgeview.  Darren had always been someone that ruffled his feathers but now he can be this rock-steady source of peace and order.  Maybe even at the same time.  Chris’s chest aches with want.  He watches as Darren plates the bacon too, and rubs his hands down the thighs of his jeans.

“Okay, syrup and butter are on the table.  So if you want heated syrup we’ll have to throw it in the microwave.”

Chris spots the coffee maker across the counter.  “You did all this work.  I can make the coffee.”

Darren laughs, stepping back from the stove.  “I actually don’t drink coffee.  Hard to believe with the way I haven’t slept in 20 years, but I hate the taste.”

“I don’t drink coffee either.  Not unless I’m completely desperate for caffeine. And only then if it’s half creamer.”

He looks at Darren, and Darren’s got that soft smile quirking the corner of his mouth, and it’s only been one day without shaving and already his salt-and-pepper stubble is verging on beard territory, and something in him just _tugs_.  Chris steps closer, and Darren’s smile drops into parted lips.  He rests his hand just over Darren’s heart, slides it up to grip his shoulder.  It’s just so easy to lean in, his heart pounding and skin tingling as he tilts his forehead to touch Darren’s.

He’s not sure who moves first and it doesn’t matter because they’re _kissing_.  But not the rough, violent kisses Chris might have imagined after their famous arguments.  Darren’s cradling the side of his face like he’s something precious and Chris is holding on for dear life at the way the slow drag of Darren’s lips leave him gasping for air.  It’s passionate with a sluggish kind of throb, the kind that builds until it breaks and leaves everything warm and hazy.

Darren pulls away sharply and Chris whines, pushing back in for more and finding he’s too far.  Chris blinks blearily and claps a hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh.

The fucking parrot is roosting on Darren’s head.

“Oh my god,” Darren half-yells, swatting at the bird.  “Really?”

Chris calmly reaches out, encouraging the parrot to sit on his outstretched fingers.  He sets him back on top of the fridge.  “Terrible timing,” he tells it.

When he turns back around Darren is just so _mad_ and it makes his shoulders shake until he can’t hold it in anymore and his laughter is bouncing off the tiled floor.

“Oh shut up,” Darren says, but he’s smiling and he wraps his arm around Chris’s waist and they’re kissing again.  Right in the middle of the kitchen, in the middle of their beautiful mess.


End file.
